Its origins lay in 1957 when Radcliffe College librarians, archivists, and professors began researching the need for a version of the Dictionary of American Biography dedicated solely to women.
The work for the fourth volume was a joint project of Radcliffe College and Harvard University Press funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, and edited by Barbara Sicherman and Carol Hurd Green.
If the longest articles seem a bit overpowering, or the more familiar ones too well known, turn to Mary Peck Butterworth, counterfeiter of colonial days; Margaret Hardenbrook Philipse, who carried on a mercantile business in her maiden name [...]; Kate Kennedy, who in the late 1860's fought for "equal pay for equal work"; Ellen Demorest who developed paper dress patterns; Alice Kober who helped decipher Linear B; Ida Lewis, a lighthouse keeper renowned for her rescues; Annie Peck, the mountain climber; Ann Eliza Young, a disaffected wife of Brigham Young; Emma Edmonds who served for two years in the Army of the Potomac disguised as a man.
"[11] A review in The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education states "Often historical compendiums assembled by white historians and editors tend to shortchange the contributions of members of minority groups.
[12] In a review for Feminist Collections, Mary Hitchcock writes, "One potential drawback to the structure of the books in this series is that without a comprehensive index to all the volumes, it could prove time-consuming to locate an entry for a particular woman if one is not certain when she died.